Friday, July 28, 2017 Red card or red faces?
As widely forecast, the Chamber of Deputies fell short of the two-thirds majority required to expel Julio De Vido from its ranks this week.
Expelling a member who has yet to be convicted (he faces trial on three counts) would be a dangerous precedent which could threaten democracy.
De Vido might be an easy target but if the vote total is all that matters, this could become a dangerous and extremely arbitrary precedent for excluding parliamentary minorities.
The doubts here lie not with “Duvidoso” (reportedly the ex-minister’s nickname in Brazil) but with what matters most to the Macri government — institutional integrity or electoral opportunism?